by JE Gurley
I closed my door to prying neighbors and waited for the police to arrive.
“Is it…?” Joria couldn’t finish her question. The look on my face provided her answer.
“While you were there, in the mill with the creatures, did you see more than one juvenile?”
She shook her head. “No, just the one, which you killed.”
“I saw three egg cases and killed all three. There had to be at least one more, hidden somewhere.”
Joria backed up from the strident tone of my voice. I realized sheepishly I had unconsciously slipped into my suspect-questioning mode. I took a deep breath and asked more softly, “Can a Chupacabra birth more than three offspring at one time?”
“No.”
My stomach tightened. I knew she was lying. She knew there had been one more of the creatures. I could hear it in her voice. I nodded silently, afraid to speak in my disappointment.
When a pair of uniformed officers arrived fifteen minutes later, they took one look at the scene and raced from the room retching. Munson arrived ten minutes after them with his new assistant, a young man in his early twenties with a shaved head, three earrings in one ear and a Maori tattoo above one eyebrow. I wondered how he got along with the staunchly conservative Munson.
Munson took a brief glance at the scene and then looked at me and pronounced sadly, “I thought it was over.”
“So did I. I saw no sign of a fourth egg. I guess I should have looked further.” I cast a quick glance at Joria sitting in the hallway with her back against the wall but she was paying no attention to the proceedings.
“Before you burned down the church?” he added with one eyebrow raised.
“Yeah,” I answered, properly chastised. “Before I burned down the church.”
“I checked before we left. We’ve only had one report on a missing girl. Everyone prayed she was just a runaway. I guess God only answers certain prayers.”
I shook my head. “God’s got nothing to do with this case. These creatures are straight out of hell and that’s where I’ve got to send it.”
Munson eyed me suspiciously. “Don’t go all Rambo on us, Hardin, uh Detective Hardin. You tried that once before and look where it got you. Why not work with the team on this one?”
I smiled. “I don’t work and play well with others, Doc.”
“I’ve noticed that. There’s nothing more you can do here. Why don’t you and your lady friend go check into a hotel for a few days? You can’t stay here.”
I looked at the blood and the mutilated bodies and sighed. I doubted I would ever be able to sleep there again. “I guess you’re right.” I walked over to Joria and looked down at her. Her eyes, when she returned my gaze, were cold and distant.
“You don’t believe me,” she said.
“You’ve been holding out on me all along. Now, I’ve got three more dead girls. This damn thing was in the woods at the cabin. How the hell did it find me?”
“You think I brought it?” she shot at me.
I shook my head sadly. “I don’t know what to think anymore. I want to believe you, to believe that there’s something between us, but I’m a cop. It’s my nature to be suspicious.”
She stood and faced me. “Then be less of a cop and more of a man. Let your heart guide you.” She glanced around. “Take me from this place.”
Outside in the Explorer, I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my hands ached. I drove around town half in a daze, paying no attention to where I was going. Finally, I realized we needed a place to stay. I located a motel near the airport and checked in. I had only the clothes I had brought with me to the cabin. I had not bothered to take anything from my apartment. Joria immediately locked herself in the bathroom. I plopped down on the bed and tried to focus my thoughts. The bodies had been a message, but what, exactly was the message. I remembered the ash. Ash meant a fire. There was only one fire common to both the Chupacabra and me.
“The monastery,” I whispered. Could the creature still be using the ruins as a base? It had been born or hatched here, so it was possible it had a bond of familiarity with the place.
I sat up on the edge of the bed and looked at the bathroom. “Joria,” I called out. She did not answer. “I have to go out for a while. I’ll be back.” I hoped she would unlock the door and come out or at least answer me, but to my bitter disappointment, she did neither.
The monastery was a scar within the old walls. I parked outside the walls and walked around eyeing the ruins. There was little left of it but a shell. The monastery had collapsed into the basement and catacombs. A deep depression filled with rubble marked the location of the old mill along the dried up riverbank. Of the entire structure, only the outer compound wall and a small section of the newer church remained, roofless but the walls were intact. The fire department had concentrated on this area, fighting back the main fire. I walked inside through the gaping front door.
Water from the hoses had swept the center of the floor almost clean of dirt, ash and debris but patches of soot remained along the walls. I examined the soot and saw that it had recently been disturbed. I also found dried blood and pieces of cloth. I was right. The creature had returned to familiar territory.
“I could kill you now.”
I spun to find the creature sitting atop a piece of the broken wall. Except for a small patch of lighter gray along one wing, it was an exact duplicate of the adult. It squatted, staring at me with its head cocked slightly.
“As men, we are all equal in the presence of death. Publilius Syrus said that in 100 BC. You do not fear death. My parent and my siblings misjudged you. I shall not.”
It felt odd having a conversation with the creature, but I knew my .45 would not kill it. Conversation might be the only thing keeping me alive.
“You read that in my book of poetry,” I replied, recognizing the passage from one of the open books on my table. “I got your message.”
A cross between a sneer and a look of condescension flickered across its gargoyle-like features. “I could not let you believe you had won.”
I smiled. “I decimated the old family pretty good though, didn’t I?”
The creature raised its head and screamed shrilly. It raised its wings and I thought it was coming after me, but it settled down.
“Only two siblings of a brood of four survive past hatching. I would have had to fight my eldest sibling for dominance. You saved me that task; therefore, I live. For this, I shall let you live if you leave this place and take no heed of me or my kind again.”
I shook my head. “I can’t do that. It’s my job to stop you.”
“You cannot, but I will soon leave this place. Other regions beckon me. Forget me. Take the life I offer you.”
The creature sounded adamant about my leaving it alone, but I also thought I detected something else in its voice – fear. It was stronger, yet I had managed to kill its parent and three of its siblings. I decided to play on that fear.
“I won’t give you the chance to leave. The time for your kind is over. There’s no room for you anymore. Earth belongs to humans.”
“My kind was pondering the intricacies of the stars while you still clung to trees in fear of the night. Only your prolific rate of reproduction has made you the dominant species, not your intelligence.”
I sensed a high degree of superiority and condescension the creature’s attitude. I supposed it would need that arrogance to feed on humans, even if it believed we possessed inferior intelligence. I shrugged. “Intelligence is overrated.”
“Your glibness will not save you.”
I spread my arms wide and smiled. “Then go ahead and kill me. No more of this ‘I will make you suffer’ crap. I’ve had enough.”
“Your suffering will define you if you continue to hunt me. Ignore me; take no more part in the search for me, and I will allow you to live out the few years of your pathetic life.”
“I’ll have to think about it,” I snapped.
“You think to
engage me in banal conversation to save yourself. Do not worry. I will not kill you now, but do not expect mercy from the merciless. Now, go!”
I stared at the creature just long enough to make my point, and then turned and left. I could feel its cold eyes on the back of my neck until I reached my car. I let out my pent up breath and took a deep breath. I had just stared death in its blood red eyes and had walked away unscathed. I knew that would not happen again, and yet I knew I could not ignore the creature. I had never left a case unsolved and I wouldn’t now.
Where had this creature been when I had killed the others? Had it already flown the nest? No, it said as the youngest it would have had to fight for dominance. I had saved it the trouble. Like its parent, it seemed to be most comfortable near the monastery. But the monastery was gone now. Only ruins and rubble remained. How could the creature use it as a lair? There was no place for it to hide.
As I stood there, I felt the ground tremble beneath my feet and smiled. I remembered the rumble of the subway when I had been in the underground mill. How close were the subway tunnels to the catacombs?
I left the grounds of the monastery. I had put it off as long as I could but I finally put in a call to Captain Bledsoe. He had heard about the three dead girls in my apartment and was livid.
“Hardin! What is it about you that attracts death like some God damn horror magnet? I thought you killed all these things. Now it’s leaving you presents at your doorstep like some house cat with a dead mouse. Have you seen the papers? The city is in an uproar. The Mayor is demanding my head on a silver platter and he wants your balls right there beside it. Citizens groups are calling for vigilante action. What the hell have you got to say for yourself?”
I waited a moment to let the captain wind down. “I just had a conversation with it. It said it would leave me alone if I left it alone.”
I felt a perverse pleasure at the stone cold silence on the other end. Finally, he yelled, “Christ, Hardin! The bastard talks? You’ve got to be …What did you tell it?”
I smiled into the receiver at the captain’s incredulity. I had to admit it was difficult to believe. “I said I was going to kill it just like I did the others.”
Captain Bledsoe erupted. “Damn it, Hardin! We’re a team here. You’ve got to play on the team or we’re going to lose.”
“Nine girls, Captain. I think we’re already losing. If we go in sirens screaming and guns blazing, this creature will have a field day, shredding cops like confetti. It’s a one-man job, mine. If I lose, you can send someone else after it.”
“Damn it! I can’t allow that, Hardin. You can’t go off on your own. You’re a cop…”
I interrupted him. “No, I was a cop. I’ll drop my shield off in the morning. If you won’t play it my way, I’ll play it alone.”
I hung up on him and then turned off my cell phone. I didn’t need him on my back. He had helped me make my decision. I couldn’t approach this like a cop any more. As a cop, I would have to take Joria in for questioning and the Feds would have her in their custody within minutes. I needed her. I didn’t know just how involved she was with the Chupacabra, but she knew more about them than anyone else. I needed her expertise. It was war and I needed to be a warrior – no rules, no speeches, no arrests. I had to blow this thing back to hell and soon.
As I drove back to the motel, I began to feel better. A weight had lifted from my shoulders. Even as I had hunted and killed the others, it had been as a cop with a cop’s morals and a cop’s remorse at the way I had handled it. Now, I didn’t have that cloud hanging over me. I could hunt it as Ahab had hunted Moby Dick, out of sense of moral superiority feeding my desire for revenge. Intelligent or not, it was a creature from hell and deserved no mercy. I would kill it without qualms.
Next, I needed to find out what lay beneath the old church. I was delighted and somewhat mystified upon my return to the motel to find Joria waiting. Knowing her penchant for disappearing, I had half expected her to be gone. Her smile seemed tentative and given our earlier conversation, I understood her hesitation.
“Where were you?” she asked.
“Talking to our gray friend.”
“What? You saw it? At the monastery.”
Had she guessed the monastery because of its earlier visits or did she know something more? “Yes. It offered to let me live if I quit chasing it.”
Joria stared at me expectantly. “And?”
“I told it I intended to kill it.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. “It will kill you.”
“Would you care?”
She jerked her head up and looked up at me, her eyes wide. “Of course I would care,” she snapped. “I love you. You’re too blind to see that.”
My jaw dropped while my heart skipped a couple of beats. Her words struck me like a punch in the stomach. Maybe I had been blind. It had happened before. “You have a funny way of showing it, popping in and out of my life like a damn mirage.”
“I ran because Section One was after me, not because I wished to.”
I sat down on the bed beside her. Her eyes were moist and she clutched the sheets savagely with trembling hands. I couldn’t help doubting her; she had given me ample reason to doubt, but deep inside I wanted just the answer she had given me. I needed it more badly than I cared to admit even to myself. I lightly touched her hand. She grabbed it and squeezed as if my offer was a lifeline tossed to a drowning person.
“I’ve got to kill this creature. I’m going to kill it, but I need your help. I have to know where you stand. Will you help me kill it?”
She did not answer immediately, which I took to mean that she was seriously considering my question. If she had said yes immediately, I would have known she was lying. I knew she badly wanted the creature to live, to study it, but she had seen the bodies in my apartment and in the monastery. She had seen their pale, mutilated, drained bodies. I had witnessed their impact on her.
“I don’t want you to die,” she replied. “I’ll help you.”
“Why is the creature staying near the monastery?” I suspected the answer, but I needed to hear it from her lips. I held my breath.
She looked at me, her lip quivering. “The subway tunnel runs beneath the monastery. Maybe the Chupacabra is using it.”
I released my breath. I knew she was right. It was the only possible answer. She had known about the subway tunnel before I had gone after her and torched the monastery. It would do not good to confront her about it now. I had no proof, just my gut instinct. I needed her help. I nodded.
“We’ll need some help.”
21
Tray Faber strongly believed in fate. He had weathered the fiasco that ensued after the death of the adult Chupacabra. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the President and the Director of Homeland Security had each taken turns berating him and his department for failing to secure a live specimen, threatening him with disciplinary action. Finally, fatigue and the raw memories of those who had given their lives trying to carry out his orders had taken control of Faber’s tongue.
“Get off my back!” he had yelled at the President and the Director. “What the hell do you want?” The ensuing silence had brought him such a sense of joy that he didn’t mind that he had probably just personally delivered his oral resignation to his Commander-in-Chief. Miracle of miracles, the President had backed down and apologized and had even thanked him for securing the two dead specimens. It was fate, therefore, that decreed he still be head of Section One when word came that the killings had begun again. There was another creature out there, a second chance. Faber was overjoyed.
It came as no surprise that Detective Thackery Hardin was once again at the center of the melee. The creature had delivered three corpses to Hardin’s apartment upon his absence, had even stalked him while he was at his cabin in the woods. What did surprise Faber was learning through Captain Bledsoe’s reports that the creatures were intelligent and capable of speech. That bit of information had Washington
astir as never before. Now, they were not simply dealing with an ancient creature with remarkable powers of rejuvenation, but also one as intelligent as, or possibly more intelligent than man. The threat to national security had gone up another level. Suddenly, Washington had offered Faber a blank check and the unlimited resources of the Federal government to produce a live creature.
He was proud that he did not allow this sudden surge of confidence in his abilities go to his head. He realized Washington was a fickle mistress and what was offered one day could be withdrawn the next. He still had the blood of three dead agents staining his hands as proof of his fallibility. Their ghosts acted as Caesar’s slave riding on the chariot behind a triumphant Caesar reminding him that he was only human. Faber realized he was only too human but his task seemed beyond frail human capabilities. Nevertheless, failure was not an option. The key to capturing a creature was Thackery Hardin. Hardin and the creature were joined at the hips like a pair of macabre psychic Siamese twins.
The Alvarez woman had dropped out of sight after the fiasco at the monastery. Faber suspected that she was involved with the creature more deeply than she admitted. There were just too many coincidences where she and the creature were concerned. He knew she would show up eventually, either near the creature or with Hardin. She seemed to have the detective wrapped around her little finger, not that he could blame Hardin. Dr. Alvarez was a real looker. He had some serious questions for her.